Chasing the Dragon: this country's heroin epidemic

In February, the FBI and DEA released a gritty video about this country's heroin epidemic. The video can be found here:

Last fall, a newspaper I may be familiar with did a series of stories about heroin addiction. The series was called Chasing Dark, a take-off of the street term Chasing the Dragon. The series of stories can be found here:Chasing Dark | Keizertimes
It's depressing to learn the facts behind heroin addiction, or the broader issue of opiod addiction (prescription painkillers, etc.) It's heartbreaking to hear parents talk about losing a child to addiction. But the facts must be learned and the stories must be told.
The thing about heroin is it's completely indiscriminate. It can attack any family, regardless of wealth, social standing, family make-up, etc. Simply put, this shit is killing our country's youth at an alarming rate and it's happening in every single community. I guarantee it.
So this is my plea to the journalists on this board: do stories about heroin addiction, or convince others at your paper/former paper/website/whatever to do such stories. Find local families willing to talk. Find local detectives or local doctors willing to talk. Keep an eye and ear out for addiction stories. Because they are out there. To ignore the stories means addicts are dying in vain.

Who would have ever thought that prescribed opiates are leading to the resurgence in heroin.

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I teach a couple of stats-related courses in a health care administration program, and it's been quite a learning experience. And let me just say up front that this is NOT a knock on Obamacare, it's just one of those instances in which you do X and suddenly shitpiles of things you never thought of occur. Anyway, apparently Obamacare is set up such that some of a health care practice's funding is contingent on patient satisfaction. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but from what my students tell me that has led to a tremendous amount of pressure to make patients happy re: pain. This has led, on the margin, to "heavier" pain medication, and this has led, naturally, to an increase in opioid addiction.

Two of my younger cousins got caught up in heroin. It was sad because to me they still were the little kids we used to play wiffle ball with while knocking back some coors at family gatherings. One became a bank robber to feed his addiction. The other somehow walked out of a deal unharmed where his girlfriend and buddy were shot in the head on the side of the road. The shooters later came back to get him and ran into his grandfather, who shot one of them dead in his kitchen with a shotgun. Basically, the grandfather --my grandmothers brother -- sat in the house with a shotgun across his knee for a month waiting for them. It was messed up beyond belief even for my hillbilly family standards. Moral of the story: heroin is a brutal epidemic.

One thing that would be interesting, if you're doing any follow-ups, and if anyone is willing to participate, is find out what happens at rehab centers. We always hear about someone going to rehab, but we rarely hear about what the recovering addicts do at rehab. What is involved in a patient's rehab? What programs are offered?